The Peterson Institute will webcast the release of a new study, Local Content Requirements: A Global Problem, by Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott. The authors assess the stealth protectionist policies adopted in response to the Great Recession of 2008–09 worldwide, including the United States.

The Peterson Institute will webcast a major speech by Thomas J. Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, on the challenges faced by central bankers in small open economies at sea in an uncertain global economic system.

The Peterson Institute and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) will webcast a panel discussion on longer-term perspectives on the euro area's recovery efforts. Participants include Harold James, Princeton University and CIGI; Nicolas Véron and Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Peterson Institute; Ardo Hansson, Governor of the Bank of Estonia; and Domenico Lombardi, CIGI.

The Peterson Institute will webcast the semiannual Moody's Investor Service–PIIE Sovereign Economic Panel. Lucio Vinhas de Souza from Moody's and Adam S.Posen from PIIE will assess the global impact of Federal Reserve tapering of stimulus. Dietmar Hornung, Moody's, and Jeromin Zettelmeyer, PIIE, will discuss the effects of debt restructuring and structural reform on signs of euro area stabilization.

The Peterson Institute will webcast the release event of a joint study with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on responding to financial crises. This study contrasts Asia's successful efforts to respond to the recent crisis with its performance during its own crisis in the late 1990s, and the gap between the recommendations made to Asian policymakers by US and EU leaders then and what they have practiced during their own crisis since 2008. Coauthors William R. Cline, Joseph E. Gagnon, Simon Johnson, Adam S. Posen, Donghyun Park, Changyong Rhee, and Edwin M. Truman will present their views on macroeconomic response, international coordination, and political economy.

The evolving plan for a European banking union falls short of not only the ideal of an "ever closer union," but practical policy needs. The plan's reliance on national resolution authorities, only a minimal euro area financing backstop, and imposing costs on creditors of failed banks, could lead to a looser, weaker, and more fragmented banking system. Ubide urges policymakers to strengthen the banking union and make it more coherent. Troubled banks supervised by the European Central Bank should be covered by both a European resolution authority and a resolution fund to oversee bankruptcy, restructuring, and other reforms. The European plan has to lower national barriers between member states' banks, not raise them.

In the last five years, eight EU governments have been reelected while 19 have been rejected by the voters. The reelected are the "austerians": incumbent governments in Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Apparently, fiscal responsibility is popular. These countries started out with budget surpluses, pre-crisis, but they tightened their budgets as much as the fiscally irresponsible countries. With an average public debt of 91 percent of GDP, hardly anybody had any fiscal space to undertake fiscal stimulus. Interestingly, the "virtuous eight" had higher growth than the fiscally irresponsible, arguably because of their structural reforms. European voters are far wiser than most of their leaders, and Chancellor Merkel of Germany belongs to the wisest.

New York Times Blog
The Gains from Hyperglobalization
In his New York Times column, economist Paul Krugman discusses the rapid growth of trade that has taken place since 1990, basing his analysis on a study[pdf] authored by Arvind Subramanian and Martin Kessler.